How Was Popcorn Discovered?

Mystery Hour Question

Answer

Answer: Sweetcorn is the same thing as popcorn. It fell off the corn. They dry it out. They were put on hot stones. They popped, released the starch and of course, are very nice to eat.

Name: James O’Brien, LBC Studio

Qualification: Host

Answer: They’d worked out how to make bread. So they were picking corn and wheat and grinding them up to make the flour and one day it was really, really hot and there was a little bit of something that magnified the sunlight and it was shining on a popcorn kernel and it got so hot that it just popped. Someone looked at it and thought "that looks nice, I’m going to have a little taste of that". The first person to make popcorn did it accidentally when a kernel of corn ended up getting heated up by the sun to such a degree that it actually popped.